Head Protection & PPE Policy

Here’s a policy template you can adapt to ensure safe and compliant selection, use, maintenance and inspection of head protection and other PPE required by OHS laws.

HEAD PROTECTION & PPE SAFETY POLICY

  1. PURPOSE

ABC Company has adopted this Policy to ensure that all personnel required to use industrial protective headwear are furnished the necessary equipment and understand how to use, care for, inspect, and store it properly in accordance with [province] Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (‘OHS Regulations’), the Occupational Health and Safety Act (‘Act’), the ABC Company Occupational Health and Safety Program (‘OHS Program’), and other applicable requirements and standards.

  1. DEFINITIONS

For purposes of this Policy:

  • ‘Administrative controls’ means the provision, use, and scheduling of work activities and resources in the workplace, including planning, organizing, staffing, and coordinating, for the purpose of controlling risk;
  • ‘Engineering controls’ means the physical arrangement, design, or alteration of workstations, equipment, materials, production facilities, or other aspects of the physical work environment, for the purpose of controlling risk;
  • ‘New worker’ includes any worker who is:
    • New to the workplace;
    • Returning to a workplace where the hazards in that workplace have changed during the worker’s absence;
    • Affected by a change in the hazards of a workplace; or
    • Relocated to a new workplace if the hazards in that workplace are different from the hazards in the worker’s previous workplace;
  • ‘PPE’ means personal protective equipment;
  • ‘Practicable’ means that which is reasonably capable of being done, a standard applied in determining what safety measures to implement to control a hazard;
  • ‘Qualified’ means being knowledgeable of the work, the hazards involved, and the means to control them by reason of education, training, and/or experience;
  • ‘Young worker’ means a worker under age 25.
  1. POLICY STATEMENT

As with all hazards, ABC Company’s preferred approach to managing workplace hazards to a person’s head, is to totally eliminate them. However, total elimination of head and other hazards may not be practicable in all situations. When total elimination is not practicable, ABC Company will take steps to minimize and control such hazards, which may include the use of engineering controls, administrative controls, safe work practices, and PPE, or a combination of the above.

In selecting controls, ABC Company will give preference to measures that control the hazard at the source; second choice will be accorded to measures that control the hazard along its path to the worker; PPE and other measures that control the hazard at the worker will be used as a measure of last resort and/or as a means of supplementing and backing up controls implemented at the source and along the path.

Where PPE is determined to be necessary to deal with head and other hazards, workers affected by the hazard requiring use of PPE must understand what the PPE does to protect them, what its limitations are, and how to properly use, inspect, and maintain it before engaging in operations requiring them to use the PPE.